South Eastern Australian state, Victoria, has become the first to make ‘revenge-porn’ illegal, by modifying existing sexting laws, making it against the law to publish nude pictures of someone without their consent. The hope is that this will help stop jilted lovers attempting to humiliate their ex-partners.

The new law that will be brought together with existing legislation, will make it an offence to take part in “non-consensual sexting,” thereby making it illegal to deliberately send naked pictures of someone that isn’t yourself. However, caveats have been added to make sure that children who are caught out by the law are not also hit with child pornography charges.

One of the more well known revenge porn sites, IsAnyoneUp, posted such images for the world to see. Source: Wiki

“As the law stands, children can be charged with creating child pornography if they sext, which I don’t think anyone anticipated when the child pornography laws were drafted,” said Coalition MP Clem Newton-Brown while speaking with The Guardian. “The real harm is done when images are sent to third parties.”

In a surprising show of maturity for a law that has relevance to child pornography, the new legislation will only come into effect against children if they have more than a two year age gap. With regards to adults, as long as those images aren’t passed on to a third party, then no harm no foul.

No penalties have yet been finalised for those that are convicted under the new law.

KitGuru Says: This seems fair enough. I’m especially pleased to hear about the modifications for kids that get caught doing it too. There is no need to stick a pair of 13 year olds on the sex offenders register for the rest of their lives if everything is consensual.